Making the Grade by Tony Wagner Reinventing America's Schools

This book provides a guide for a long-overdue public dialogue about why and how we need to reinvent our nation's schools. How has the world changed for our children; what do all students need to know in light of these changes; how do we hold students and schools accountable for results; what do good schools look like; and what must leaders do to create more of these schools? These are some of the questions that drive this book. The answers emerging to these questions may surprise many. The most successful public schools of the 21st century look a lot more like our 19th century village schools than our current factory model of schooling. This book describes these "new village schools" that have been created in the last decade and suggests that they are a prototype for the schools of the future.

Tony Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade. Tony consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility. Tony is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and a widely published author. His work includes numerous articles and five books. Tonys latest, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, will be published in April 2012 by Simon & Schuster. His recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Dont Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Needand What We Can do About It has been a bestseller and is being translated into Chinese. Tonys other titles include: Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, Making the Grade: Reinventing Americas Schools, and How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited. He has also recently collaborated with noted filmmaker Robert Compton to create a sixty-minute documentary, The Finnish Phenomenon: Inside the Worlds Most Surprising School System.Tony earned an M.A.T. and an Ed.D. at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Making the Grade

Kirkus Reviews

Wagner’s most valuable contribution here is reporting on his own work with communities whose school systems were in disarray and how, through forums and focus groups, common goals were established and successfully implemented on the local level, creating what he calls the “New Village School.”
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Publishers Weekly

The standards movement, once touted as the cure-all for failing schools, "has degenerated into the 'standardized testing movement,' " in which teachers teach to the test, students become scores, and everyone feels less motivation to learn and achieve.